


Project Runway Baltimore

by Caveat_Lector



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, More Pairings to Come - Freeform, Project runway - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:45:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7997383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caveat_Lector/pseuds/Caveat_Lector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Project Runway, Hannibal style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just some insanity from Tumblr! Archiving it here so it doesn't get lost forever :)
> 
> Special <3 to granpappy-winchester/LazyBaker for [fabulous ideas on tumblr](http://moorsmist.tumblr.com/post/150098333488/its-all-bryan-fullers-fault) that I'm probably going to shamelessly plunder.

**Will Graham**  
Freelance Designer _#DesignerWill_

"So, Will. What do you think of the other designers' progress on the first challenge?"

Will blinks at the camera in a haze of hairspray and powder. A harrassed production assistant had sat him in a chair in front of some artfully arranged mannequins and ignored him for twenty minutes. He'd been considering a quick nap when three make-up people ambushed him. 

"Uh, I... haven't really noticed anything." He pushes his glasses up his nose, then remembers he was told to keep his hands out of shot. "Was I supposed to--?"

"No, no, that's fine." The producer murmurs something to the guy behind her, and he laughs. Will shifts in his seat. "Maybe take a quick look around the workroom before your next interview, just to give us some options. But we can talk about your design for now. How are you approaching it?"

"Well, I've always been inspired by dreams, so this is a good challenge for me. I'm experimenting with some new shapes, uh, and interesting black and white prints I found, trying to create something reminiscent of the shadows that follow us out of our nightmares."

The producer's forehead creases into a frown. "This is for the children's pyjama challenge? The models will be... well, children." 

Will's fingers dig into the arms of the chair and he swallows hard. "Yes?"

The producer grabs a passing PA by the arm and shuffles quickly through the papers on her clipboard. “Alana’s going to kill me,” Will thinks she says, but that doesn’t seem very likely. There's a sheen of sweat across her brow and a desperate look in her eyes when she looks up. 

The PA steps forward, tapping her pen against her perfect scarlet lips. "You have watched the show, right?"

Will doesn't know what that has to do with anything. "I don't own a television."

The PA's mouth drops open, and the studio falls dead silent.

"Am I done?" 

 

 **Frederick Chilton**  
Senior Designer BSHCI Inc. _#DesignerFreddie_

Frederick shakes his head sadly. It does nothing to hide his smirk.

"I'm _very_ worried about Will Graham."


	2. Day 2 - morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for some critiques...

"Hello, Will."

Will has a mouthful of pins, and there's no elegant way to remove them quickly. He spits the pins out and stands up to see the workroom camera and a tall man in an impressively tailored, if somewhat loud, suit. 

"We can edit that out, Mr Lecter," an assistant says, and the tall man nods at her.

"Please be sure that they do."

Lecter has an accent that Will can't place, something European. He gave them their challenge yesterday, but Will didn't take much notice of goings-on after that. 

"Are you ready for your critique, Will, or shall I come back later?"

"Critique?"

Lecter smiles, a thin-lipped brief flash of humor. "This is where we talk about your design. My role here is as a mentor to you all."

"I'm not really looking for a mentor, Mr Lecter." Will's fuzzy on what that concept could even mean on a TV show, especially when this is the first conversation he's ever had with the man.

"Hannibal, please. And I'm afraid I'm part of the package. But we can just have a friendly chat if you prefer." Lecter leans in towards Will, and Will takes a step back before he can think better of it.

"Please try to stay on your mark, Mr Graham." The assistant waves him back and makes some arcane gesture at the camera operator.

"Sorry." 

"As I was saying, we can just have a chat." Lecter – Hannibal – moves to turn Will's dress form, and the elongated sleeves of the kid-sized pyjama top swing wildly as it spins round. "Are the sleeves finished?"

Will nods, and Hannibal raises an eyebrow. "They're a little... how can I put this?"

"Straitjacket-ish?" Will says, and Hannibal gives him a twist of his lips and a head tilt. "Yeah, that's what I wanted. There are buttons--"

Hannibal narrows his eyes as Will, and Will can see when he gets it. "So it's part of the layering you have going on? I see it now."

Will shoves his hands in his pockets, but the assistant points and frowns until he removes them.

"It's a very interesting approach. Are you at all concerned that the judges might not see this as a good fit with the rest of Alana's children's line?" Hannibal continues.

"Not really." Hannibal and the rest of the room seem to be waiting for more, so he tries again. "I think cohesion can be overrated."

Hannibal nods in what Will, surprised, thinks might be approval. "Well, you certainly have a point of view," he says, resting his hand briefly on Will's arm. "Carry on."

Will expects Hannibal to move off immediately with the camera, but he lingers.

"I believe you've known Alana for a long time," he says, his voice a little softer now. "Almost as long as I have myself."

"A while, yes," Will says.

Hannibal takes a step away, but stops and turns back to Will. "I wonder why she never introduced us before."

Will wonders why Hannibal wonders. "I'm sure she had her reasons," he shrugs, but his mind is already back in his design.

 

 **Beverly Katz**  
Tailor/Designer _#DesignerBeverly_

"I like Will, he seems like a good guy. Different, but good. I just don't know what the judges are going to make of his stuff. I love it, but it's a bit out there."

She grins, and there's a twinkle in her eye despite the obvious exhaustion. 

"Hannibal seems to be a fan though. _That's_ not gonna hurt."

 

"Hi, I'm Beverly."

Will looks up from his hastily assembled sandwich and nods. "I'm--"

"I know who you are." 

She sits down next to him, and Will's grateful that she's observant enough not to force eye contact. Not like the redhead at the other table that keeps looking over. 

"You made that silver dress for Alana, what... six years ago? And then you vanished."

"I didn't vanish," he says, fingers twitching against his plate. "I wasn't even really a designer."

"We'd all give our first born for that kind of exposure, and you walked away." 

Her gaze falls to Will's hands while she's stirring five sugars into her coffee, and he fights the urge to hide his scars under the table.

"Was it what happened to your hand--"

"Yes," Will snaps, before he can stop himself. He takes a deep breath and tries again. "I'd really rather not talk about it."

"Hmm." Beverly takes a sip, her face thoughtful. "They're going to want you to on camera eventually, I bet."

"I'll probably be out before it's an issue," Will says, matter-of-factly.

"Maybe you will."

Down at the other end of the table, the only designer that's less sociable than Will is not very effectively hiding the pile of breadcrumbs in front of him. 

"Hi Peter. Whatcha doin'?"

Will likes that she's so casual about it. She's the only one to sit down with him and Peter so far.

"They're for the birds," he says, when Peter flicks them a look but doesn't respond. "They line up on the window ledges as soon as they see one crack open."

"I didn't think any of them were unlocked this high up."

Will looks back down at his sandwich and twists his mouth just enough to pass as a smile. It's amazing what you can get away with keeping in a sewing kit. He learned that a long time ago.

"They are now."

"I'll bear it in mind when the pressure gets too much," Beverly says, and Will laughs for the first time in two days.

 

 **Brian Zeller**  
Designer for Fashion By I _#DesignerBrian_

"So, my first critique with Mr Lecter didn't go too well..."

 

"You're starting to worry me," Brian chuckles nervously. 

Hannibal has been staring impassively at Brian's dress form for what feels like an hour, even though it's probably less than a minute.

This is not good. He can feel the eyes of the other designers turn towards him one by one, giving up the pretence of getting on with their own work while there's a chance of some spectator bloodsport.

Hannibal shifts one hand to under his chin, and Brian can feel the tremor that goes round the workroom.

"You should be worried," Hannibal says at last, fixing Brian with a laser-like stare. "You've had a day and a half already, and this is all you have to show for it?"

"He was helping Ms. Lounds with--" Jimmy Price helpfully pipes up, until Brian stamps down hard on his foot.

Hannibal sweeps a brief glance over the table next door, where Freddie is studiously avoiding getting involved.

"Ms. Lounds looks like she's managing perfectly well without your help."

Yeah, well. Considering Brian pretty much redid all of it when the cameras were pointed elsewhere, using ideas that turned out much better than his own, that's not a huge shock. If he didn't know better, he'd think she'd never patterned or sewn a garment in her life.

Nerves, she'd said, but watching her randomly shoving pins into the already perfectly-finished pyjama cuffs, he's beginning to wonder. 

 

 **Freddie Lounds**  
Fashion blogger/designer _#DesignerFrederick_

"Yes, I'm pretty confident I'm going to win this challenge."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, something is going on with the DesignerXXXX hashtags, it will make sense later ;-)


	3. Day 2 - Afternoon. The designers' torment continues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Franklyn Froideveaux achieves his life's ambition - meeting Hannibal Lecter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to LazyBaker/granpappy-winchester :D

**Franklyn Froideveaux**  
Proprietor, FF Design _#DesignerFranklyn_

Franklyn leans forward in his seat, hands clasped earnestly in front of him.

"I'm a huge fan of the show, you know. I've watched since the very first episode. I actually took my first course in design so that if I ever happened to run into Mr Lecter at some glamorous Fashion Week party I'd be able to keep up my end of the conversation. " He laughs, a little nervously. "Maybe, who knows, I could give him some of my ideas."

He remembers to smile into the camera before he leans back. Those are the sort of personal details that will sound good when the show airs. It makes him relatable. Memorable. Hannibal Lecter is practically a national treasure. Who wouldn't want to be his friend?

The PA opens her mouth to ask one of her questions, but the producer – or Emily, she'd asked him to call her Emily, TV people are so friendly – taps her on the shoulder before she can speak. She sips her coffee and regards him with a less than appreciative eye.

"You do realise Mr Lecter has a Masters degree, has been lead designer at two of the most prestigious design houses in the world, has taught countless students who have gone on to become highly successful themselves, and basically has spent most of his adult life immersed in the fashion industry?"

Franklyn's not sure what she's trying to imply. "I'm the owner of my own business too, I--"

"Which you run from your kitchen, funded by what little you salvaged from your recently liquidated cheese venture, Mr Froideveaux."

He doesn't know how they found that out. He didn't put any of that on his application form.

"Everyone has to start somewhere," he says, and hopes the camera can't see his lip wobble.

Still, she's not the on-screen talent around here, she's just the producer of a TV show. Come Fashion Week she'll probably be working on some kids cartoon while he's sipping cocktails with Hannibal Lecter and Alana Bloom. 

He just _knows_ Hannibal will understand him.

 

"So, Franklyn. What do you have to show me?"

"H-hi Mr Lecter. Sorry, Hannibal." He gives a little bow before he can stop himself, and cringes inside.

Hannibal just casts his eye around the cramped workspace and Franklyn wonders if he should have waited until Hannibal asked him to call him by his first name. God, he's making a mess of this _already_. 

"You seem to have four or five separate looks here, Franklyn." 

"Er, yes, I--"

"If you had time to do all these, perhaps this should have been a one day challenge!" Hannibal adds jovially, and Franklyn can feel glares like knives in his back. 

He hopes they don't decide to shorten the next challenge to a single day. He finds those stressful enough from his armchair at home, and actually being on the show is proving much more difficult. Who knew?

"I can't help noticing that all five of your designs are identical." Hannibal paces up and down, a frown deepening with every step. 

"No, no!" Franklyn pulls Hannibal back by his sleeve, which on reflection probably wasn't the best thing to do. He didn't know Hannibal even _had_ an expression like that. Tobias looks at him that way sometimes, but Tobias has... issues. "Uh, I'm sorry. But they're all slightly different shades of blue, see?" He holds them up for Hannibal to take a closer look. 

At the other end of their shared table, Tobias picks up his largest pair of scissors and opens them slowly, running his fingertips along the blades. Franklyn drags his eyes away quickly and swallows, wishing, not for the first time, that they'd put his friend a little further away. 

Competition really doesn't bring out the best in Tobias.

"It's very hard to tell the difference under these lights, Franklyn." Hannibal rubs the fabrics between finger and thumb. "And spending your budget on all these cheaper fabrics probably wasn't the best use of it. Could you not have just picked one?"

Franklyn sighs. "I couldn't narrow it down. This one made me think of the suit you wore in season three, for the exotic dancer challenge, and this is your favourite color of pocket square, you've gone for that shade thirteen times in total, compared to nine turquoise and twelve light blue, and--"

"Franklyn." Hannibal's voice is stern, and Franklyn's rambling shrivels up into a dry squeak. "I think you would be much better served concentrating on your design than worrying about my favorite color of pocket square."

"You're right, I know." Franklyn heaves another sigh, and Hannibal starts to move away. It's a wrench, and he's sure Hannibal spent much more time talking to all the others. "But Hannibal?"

"Yes?"

"Which one do you like best?"

 

**Tobias Budge**  
Noteworthy Designs _#DesignerTobias_

"I think it's time Franklyn went home."


End file.
